The Japanese government shrugged off stock market gyrations Thursday, saying a raft of reforms including tax breaks for firms wanting to invest would boost the economy. As the Nikkei 225 began another precipitous drop that saw it close the day 6.35 percent lower than it started, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said the world’s third largest economy remained on a path to recovery. “Our nation’s economy is steadily picking up,” he told a briefing in the morning. “The real economy and leading indicators are improving. We want to continue to manage the economy with confidence,” he said. The government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will Friday vote on the so-called “third-arrow” of his programme of growth and reforms, in a scheme dubbed “Abenomics”. The two earlier “arrows” came in forms of aggressive monetary easing and massive public spending aimed at ending years of vigour-sapping deflation. The draft proposals place emphasis on medium to long-term goals that Abe hopes will generate two-percent real GDP growth annually over the next decade, far outstripping the rate in the last ten years.
